Actors Sigrid Thornton Sigrid Thornton (b. 1959), was in foster care for 9 months as a child. When Sigrid was 7, she left with her parents for England so they could do their doctoral degrees. Towards the end of their time in England, Sigrid's parents sent her to stay with family friends in New Zealand. For Sigrid this was a happy adventure, but she later reflected on the pain of separation from her parents. Thornton went on to have a highly successful acting career, making her film debut in 1977 at the age of 18.Over four decades Sigrid Thornton has held a unique position in the Australian film, television and theatre landscape over multiple genres and platforms on and off screen. She has starred in many films now regarded as classics of the Australian cinema including early box office hit The Man from Snowy River. Her early work brought her to the attention of HBO, leading to her starring role in the mini series All the Rivers Run which became a huge popular success globally and earned her her first best actress Logie award. Sigrid became the first Australian actress to be offered a lead role in a US network prime time drama series - Paradise for CBS, receiving a Western Heritage Cowboy Hall of Fame award in 1999. External Website

Films/Videos The Red Shoes (film) 1948 The Red Shoes (1948) is a British dance drama film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1845 fairytale. It follows aspiring ballerina Victoria Page, who joins the prestigious Ballet Lermontov under the demanding impresario Boris Lermontov. Cast as the lead in a ballet adapted from Andersen’s story, Victoria must navigate the relentless demands of art, her ambition, and her love for composer Julian Craster. As her career soars, she faces impossible choices between love and professional success. Ultimately, caught between loyalty to her art and her heart, Victoria tragically mirrors the fate of the Andersen heroine, her life and death inseparable from the symbolic power of the red shoes. External Website

Television Shows The Defeated 2020 The Defeated is a 2020 television series with a number of orphan characters. Set in Berlin in 1946, Max McLoughlin (Taylor Kitsch) is a New York detective on assignment to help set up the German Police Force in the US sector. His brother, Moritz (Logan Marchall-Green), is also in Berlin but is there on his own volition to identify Nazis and those complicit with the Nazis. Gad (Maximilian Ehrenreich) is a 16 year old German Jewish boy who lives in the police station because his family was killed during the war. There are numerous other street kids orphaned because of the war too. External Website

Performing Arts Welsh Singer Gruffydd Wyn Gruffydd Wyn is a Welsh singer. Performing as Gruffydd Wyn Roberts, he reached the Final of Britain’s Got Talent in Series 12 (2018). Gurffydd Wyn was 22 and working as a theatre assistant at the time. Gruffydd Wyn is from the Isle of Anglesy in North Wales. He said on Britain’s Got Talent that he grew up with his grandmother in Alwena, and didn’t know his father until he was 16. External Website

Television Shows The Fall 2013 British-Irish crime show set in Northern Ireland. Jamie Dornan plays serial killer Paul Spector, who in the first series is portrayed as a serial killer because he grew up in care, no information about his background is given. Series 2 and 3 explore his background a bit more. Metropolitan Police Superintendent Stella Gibson, a senior investigating officer who reviews investigations, is seconded to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to assess the progress of a murder investigation that has remained active for longer than 28 days. When it becomes apparent that a serial killer is on the loose, local detectives must work with Stella to find and capture Paul Spector, who is attacking young professional women in the city of Belfast. As time passes Stella's team works tirelessly to build a case but they are met with complications inside and outside the PSNI. External Website

Television Shows Ridley 2022 Ridley (2022) is a British police procedural starring Adrian Dunbar as a former detective inspector who, after taking early retirement, returns as a consultant to police. In the 1st episode of Series 1, the story revolves around the abduction of a 3-year-old child 15 years or so previously. The child has been living with people she thinks are her parents. Series 2, episode 2 concerns the murder of a boy living in kinship care. The murderer is the boy’s biological mother. Series 2, episode 3 includes a character who was in care & is now a drug dealer. He is treated kindly by the police because of his background. External Website

Films/Videos Living Through the Holocaust 2014 Stephen Breuer, a retired Jewish academic and potter, talks about growing up in Hungary as the Nazis came to power. Interweaving his current life with personal memories… After his mother was imprisoned when Stephen was 13, he lived with relatives until he left for the UK. External Website

Television Shows The Sally Lockhart Mysteries 2006 The Sally Lockhart Mysteries (2006) is an adaptation of books written by Care Experienced Writer Philip Pullman. In the first episode, The Ruby in the Smoke, recently orphaned Sally (Billie Piper) is tired of living with her aunt. She moves in with new friends who help her discover why a Mrs Holland (Julie Waters) is intent on killing her. In the second episode, Sally has become a successful financial consultant. When she finds out a client has been cheated by wealthy a industrialist, she sets out to right the wrong. External Website

Writers Truman Capote 1924-1984 Truman Capote (1924-1984) was born Truman Persons in New Orleans, Louisiana. His mother neglected her baby son, often leaving him locked in a hotel suite while she went out, instructing hotel staff to ignore his screams. She then left the child with Faulk relatives for around 4 or 5 years. While living in Monroeville, Truman became friends with next door neighbour Nelle Harper Lee, who later became the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) using the name Harper Lee. Both children liked to read and write and shared estrangement from their mothers. Truman’s mother married Joseph Capote in New York in 1931 and Joseph adopted Truman, who moved with the couple to New York in 1932. Truman Capote started his working life as a copyboy for the New Yorker Magazine, but later received money from his stepfather to concentrate on writing fiction. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was published in 1958 and was adapted for film 3 years later. Capote never finished another novel after In Cold Blood (1966), a novel inspired by an unsolved murder in Kansas and which brought Capote considerable fame - and some infamy. External Website

Television Shows Goliath 2016 Legal drama series. Main character is lawyer Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton). His new 2IC is Patty Solis-Papagian (Nina Arianda), who was in foster care. She is a lawyer and a real estate agent. There are other Care Experienced characters in the series, all playing the roles of villians. In the 4th season of legal drama, Patty Solis-Pagian is now a swanky corporate lawyer. There's a kinship care character too. Kate Zax (Clara Wong) is the niece of George Zax and was in his care from a young age. She's a chemist at Zax Pharma and concerned about the addictive properties of the drug the corporation promotes as non-addictive. External Website

Non Fiction Australian Gospel Lech Blaine 2024 Australian Gospel: A Family Saga (2024) by Australian writer Lech Blaine is the story of 2 families. Lech Blaine is the only biological child of Lenore & Tom Blaine. Lenore & Tom were the foster carers of 3 Shelley children, Steve, John & Hannah (amongst others). Michael & Mary Shelley have had all 4 of their children removed by the Queensland state and they have a track record of harassing, trespassing and threatening politicians as well as foster carers – including the Blaines. Lech Blaine has undertaken hours of research to tell this complicated story. He’s interviewed family members, read case files and his mother’s diary, and reviewed court reports as well as newspapers accounts of Shelley exploits. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Your Honour Can I Tell You My Story? Brierley et al 2019 Brierley Andi (Author), Hopkinson Jim (Foreword). The challenging story of a young person’s progress through care, prison and social rejection to youth justice specialist. It charts failures to connect with and modify the author’s chaotic early life moving from place to place, school to school, fragmented parenting and poor role models. Encircled by crime, drugs and baffling adults, Andi Brierley ended up first in a young offender institution then prison where he learned to think like a prisoner for his own survival, making everything harder for everybody on release. Until he determined to change and others saw his unenviable past could be put to good use. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Ploughshares at Emerson College Kelly Amber 2015 In the wide realm of literature, having parents is a convenience that escapes many characters. The Orphan is one of the most prominent characters in literature, in part because the absence of parental figures automatically fuels so many possible motivations. External Website

Radio & Podcast Haiti's first and only king History Extra Podcast 2025 In this History Extra Podcast, Marlene Daut, Professor of French & African Diaspora Studies @ Yale University talks about her book, The first & last King of Haiti, The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. Henry Chistophe (1767-1820) was likely born to a slave woman in the then British colony of Grenada. At the age of only 12 he was separated from his mother and fought in the American Revolution in the Battle of Savannah. By then Grenada had been captured for France. Christophe rose to power in the Haitian revolutionary military beginning with the slave uprising of 1791. After Haiti declared independence on 1 January 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines became emperor. When Dessalines was assassinated in 1806, the country split into 2 states, with Christophe declaring himself king of Haiti in the north in 1811. After Christophe’s death in 1820, the country was reunified. External Website

Behind the Scenes Mark Opitz Mark Opitz is an Australian record producer and audio engineer who has produced AC/DC, Australian Crawl plus other distinguished bands. He has won numerous awards for his work. Mark Opitz was born in Melbourne. After his parents separated, Mark was cared for by his mother. The family relocated to Brisbane and his parents reconciled. However, after his parents again separated, Mark was put into in foster care before being left at the Margaret Marr Memorial Home for Boys, a Methodist home that ran from 1924 until 1973. Mark Optiz moved to Sydney after he left the Home for Boys and began his career with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) IN 1971. External Website

Authors P Trauma Proof ➝ Free Loaves on Fridays: The Care System As Told By People Who Actually Get It ➝ Back to Top

Authors H Stone Girl ➝ Cuckoo in the Nest ➝ Thicker Than Water ➝ Home Bird ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood Oliver Sacks 2002 In Uncle Tungsten we meet Sacks' extraordinary family, from his surgeon mother (who introduces the fourteen-year-old Oliver to the art of human dissection) and his father, a family doctor who imbues in his son an early enthusiasm for housecalls, to his "Uncle Tungsten," whose factory produces tungsten-filament lightbulbs. We follow the young Oliver as he is exiled at the age of six to a grim, sadistic boarding school to escape the London Blitz, and later watch as he sets about passionately reliving the exploits of his chemical heroes-in his own home laboratory. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Sword Catcher Cassandra Clare 2023 The Sword Catcher tells the story of Kel. Kel is an orphan stolen from the orphanage he is living in to be the body-double of heir to the throne, Prince Conor Aurelian. Kel and Conor grow up together and become close friends. Except that Kel lives with the knowledge that his role is to die for Conor. External Website

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